Friday, 1 March 2013

Dispatches from the Tropics: 1 March 2013

I was staring out of the window the other day — an activity that I like to call 'seeking inspiration', although it is better known by its synonym 'procrastination' — when I noticed something white in one of the citrus trees. I thought it might have been a plastic shopping bag, as unlikely as that was. But when I whipped out the binoculars, I saw it was a lone sulphur-crested cockatoo...

Cockatoo feasts while magpie-lark flies past appalled

...a lone sulphur-crested cockatoo that proceeded to consume more than three dozen limes during the course of the afternoon. Fascinated by the bird's prodigious appetite and wondering at what point the acidity was going turn its beak inside out, I watched it for over an hour. I'm not proud of that. I merely report it.

The parrots in my suburb in Melbourne are getting more and more destructive. Every apple (still very green) on my tree is half-chewed. And then the neighbour's conifers were covered in white cockatoos, all munching on the green cones. Is this a new thing - all these birds in the city?

It's interesting, because 5 years ago we could say it's the drought and they need food, but now? With all the cats etc that live in suburbia, you don't want to encourage them (let alone the fruit tree damage - don't get me started on the apricots).

Rainbow Lorikeets,Crested Pigeons andCorellas, have increased in numbers over the last 20 or so years.As have White Cockatoos and Galahs.I think its because of the amount of bush land that's being cleared,forcing them to invade suburbia.

The clearing has caused several problems.The destruction of our natural habitat has caused, the loss of some species,and a reduction in numbers of others.Also some species that like the open woodland created by our farmland, have increased greatly in numbers.